


a soul worth saving

by wayslide



Series: a life worth living [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Grief/Mourning, I don't think I'm getting funnier, is it still fix-it if it's also partly crack?, my strangely specific headcanon is Gilly and Brienne becoming BFF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:59:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22630639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wayslide/pseuds/wayslide
Summary: "I have decided to take a squire," Tyrion announced, a suspicious gleam of humor in his eyes. "His name is Jaime Hill, and he is my natural-born son."Sequel toa life worth living. Young Jaime becomes Tyrion's squire and heir. Jaime does not enjoy it as much as they do.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: a life worth living [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1628035
Comments: 25
Kudos: 104





	a soul worth saving

**Author's Note:**

> I'm super busy right now but for some reason my brain still insisted on writing this. I had so many unused scenes from the last fic and enjoyed writing young Jaime so much that I am back to ruin it all with a sequel of sorts from (old) Jaime's POV.

In another world, Jaime had probably died under the Red Keep with Cersei. In _this_ world, he considered that it might have been a mercy, because Brienne was standing a mere arm's length or two away with that miserable expression on her face and he couldn't even sit up, let alone go to her. Not that he could. Or should. He didn't have that right anymore, if he'd ever had it.

At least he had managed to scoot back enough that his shoulders pressed hard into the wall and he was sitting semi-upright. It made it easier to look at her and felt moderately more dignified. 

Jaime tried a smile. She flinched a little, and Jaime filed that under 'did not go well,' right next to _tried to go to Cersei before Daenerys could get to her_ and _tried to do the knightly thing for the first time in a while and save an innocent maiden from rapers_. He thought he should probably add _took the maidenhead of the first lady knight of Westeros and then spent the next month or so ensuring it was gone before leaving said lady knight in the middle of the night_ , but he didn't have the heart for it. He couldn't think of that time as anything but good; no matter what had come before or after, he couldn't cast even the slightest shadow of regret on those memories.

Did she regret it? He wanted to ask suddenly, but a little voice that sounded suspiciously like Tyrion pointed out that maybe now was not the best time.

 _Understatement_ , the Tyrion voice said drolly.

 _The stupidest Lannister_ , Cersei's voice echoed in its wake.

"You're alive," Brienne said. Jaime tried to hear relief, maybe happiness, in her voice, but strained so hard to do so that he was left worrying that he had imagined it.

"Yes," his voice cracked damningly, and he cursed himself, he cursed Daenerys Targaryen and the Red Keep itself, for the way she shuddered and looked away from him, her bright, clear gaze glittering before she could hide it from him. His own eyes dropped down to his lap, where his stump and left hand lay wrapped in bandages.

"You're lucky you didn't lose the other hand," Sam Tarly had said cheerfully and then listed off a bunch of information about how his prognosis was good, that he was likely to make a full recovery; he said all of it like he hadn't even considered saying that Jaime was lucky he wasn't dead even though he ought to be. Maybe he hadn't. Jaime found that strangely disquieting, which he was now self-aware enough to recognize as an instinct that he'd nurtured without realizing over the years, one that pushed him to distrust and second-guess everyone and everything. Everyone and everything except for Cersei.

Who was dead. His twin, his sister, his love and lover, mother of his children; his mirror, shattered into too many pieces to save.

The sound of someone in armor moving towards him made his instincts as a soldier go taut, his eyes flashing up, but it was only Brienne cautiously coming to his side, ducking once to scoop up a stool that she brought to the side of his pallet. She set it down and sat stiffly there, not quite looking at him.

Jaime could scarcely breathe. She was—glorious. Real. Alive. A line cut between her pale brows like a slash, and she had managed to bring her gaze to his collarbones, but no higher. He could reach out and touch her at this distance, and she would be warm. Solid. Strong.

"I'm glad," she said, her voice terse and distant, at odds with the words she was saying.

"Thank you," Jaime said, but the words felt hollow. He couldn't say whether or not he meant them; perhaps he didn't at all.

Nonetheless, she nodded, and they sat for a while silently, not speaking, only breathing into the space between them, the space that was scarcely a foot but felt like a league or a thousand. An ocean of things Jaime thought he ought to say, but didn't.

Finally she dragged her eyes up to his face, said, "There is work to be done," and stood. Jaime nearly reached for her hand then, didn't. Again.

 _The stupidest Lannister_ , whispered Cersei.

 _Understatement_ , said Tyrion in his head.

"I see," Jaime said. There was something in his throat; it grew heavy and filled his stomach. Anguish, he recognized belatedly. Grief. He had lost this thing he'd had with Brienne, thrown it away—to go to Cersei one last time; Cersei, who was dead, while he was astonishingly not. He knew that had been his own decision, remembered that he had even done his best to ensure it, but he hadn't thought he'd live long enough to bear the consequences. He nearly hadn't, except—he had.

Brienne hesitated, her eyes still on his, and then she reached down to grip his shoulder. A brother-in-arms, lending what scarce comfort could be had when all was already lost. "We will speak again later," she promised, an undeserved benediction. Jaime could feel his spine straightening up under her touch, a curl of hope blooming traitorously in his stomach. He had to smile at her then, a helpless, tragic thing, and this time she only pursed her lips slightly and squeezed his shoulder, once; and then let go, the scalding, invigorating connection giving way to a softer, lingering memory of it.

She turned to go, hesitated once more. She spoke quickly as if unsure her words would be welcome, but she needed to say them anyway. "I'm sorry," she said, "about Cersei."

Then she left Jaime in this private room tucked away in a corner somewhere, alone and reeling from the generosity of her. She had said so little, but he'd felt her words carve into him as keenly as the scalpel that had cut into what was left of his right arm, cutting the dead flesh away.

_You're alive._

_I'm glad._

_I'm sorry about Cersei._

Jaime had the mad thought that if he checked, he might see the words branded on his chest, hot and puckered and proof of her coming into this room and leaving something behind for him to hold onto. Foolishly, he brought his bandaged right stump over his heart and pressed gently. There was nothing, of course, only his heart beating two-time with a longing he shouldn't feel.

A rustling at the door distracted him, and he let his stump fall back into his lap. His heart kicked up to triple-time, wondering if perhaps she had come back—

—but the door eased open and it was Tyrion and Jaime's young doppelganger who peered at him from the doorway.

"That was it?" young Jaime said, clearly disappointed, and then smirked at him. "I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Tyrion's eyes widened as he was startled into laughter and didn't stop even when Jaime picked up the stool that Brienne had left behind and tried to throw it at them; he missed.

Brienne didn't end up coming back, not for a while. Instead, she became Lord Commander of the Kingsguard for King Bran, first of his name, and she and Tyrion disappeared for days at a time, busy with the task of rebuilding and running a kingdom.

 _There is work to be done_ , she'd said, and from what Tyrion was saying about her when he did manage to visit, it seemed like she was planning to do all of it. Or, kill herself by trying to do as much of it as she possibly could and more, maddeningly stubborn and dedicated as she was. "Podrick's helping her," Tyrion assured him, but looked a bit doubtful himself about how much help that might be.

Meanwhile, Jaime recovered, slowly. Sam Tarly had become Grand Maester, which he was woefully underqualified and underprepared for, and Gilly was pregnant again. "I'm excited!" Sam said, flushing with delight but also chagrin. "Of course I am, but I can't help but think that maybe there's a better time for it. There's just so much going on, you know."

Jaime did not know. He didn't actually have anything to do, and Tyrion was always careful not to speak about his work with Jaime.

Even his doppelganger had more to keep him busy than Jaime did. "I'm helping Brienne test and train some of the new Gold Cloak recruits," the boy said smugly, dropping by one day. "She's brilliant, isn't she?" His smile had only grown wider and sharper when Jaime had pointedly said nothing in response. The boy seemed to visit Jaime for the sole purpose of aggravating him, which he was annoyingly good at.

It was a strange new world, and Jaime felt out of step with it. Even as his health and strength returned, he found himself sticking mostly to the room that he'd woken up in. Sometimes he visited Sam in his small makeshift office at the end of the hallway, where Jaime tried to be helpful by helping Sam label herbs and keep track of inventory.

Bronn did become Lord of Highgarden, and Master of Coin besides. Jaime went to court sometimes, and it was on one of those occasions that Tyrion suggested it and King Bran said: "Fine."

The new Lord of Highgarden deigned to visit Jaime sometime after that to collect Jaime's slightly sullen 'congratulations' and informed Jaime that he had decided to marry Lollys after all. "She was willing to marry me before the whole Highgarden bit," Bronn said. "A man in my position comes to appreciate that sort of thing."

"How romantic," Jaime said wryly.

Bronn snorted at that. "Not all of us can fall in forbidden love with our beautiful twin sister," he said. "Or with big, strong lady knights either, you stupid plonk."

Jaime bared his teeth at him. "You don't know anything about that," he snarled.

Bronn just threw up his hands and went to leave. "Right, right," he said, but lingered meaningfully until Jaime glared at him, and quirked up an eyebrow. "You know, I've met the kid. I think I like him better than you."

"Get out," Jaime said.

Bronn did, but not without getting the last word. "Enjoy your lonely sulk, you sad sack."

The irritating thing about his words was that Jaime _did_ sulk and it was galling to have been read so correctly.

It was just that it wasn't just Bronn; it seemed like _everybody_ liked his young doppelganger better than him. Northmen, Vale knights, Unsullied, Dothraki, wildings, southern lordlings and ladies; even those who knew that the young Lannister boy who'd come south with Sansa and her entourage was a displaced, younger Jaime Lannister, Kingslayer, seemed to prefer the boy to the original. Jaime found himself thinking longingly of Ned Stark, who certainly wouldn't have treated the boy with anything less than his usual scathing disdain.

Even Tyrion seemed quite taken with the boy.

"I have decided to take a squire," Tyrion announced during one of his visits, a suspicious gleam of humor in his eyes. "His name is Jaime Hill, and he is my natural-born son."

 _What?_ "You would have been a boy!" Jaime exclaimed, making Tyrion cackle.

"That's what he said!" his brother said, pleased by the resemblance. Jaime was not, which must have shown on his face because Tyrion laughed at his expression, whatever it was.

"But he's already a knight," Jaime protested weakly. 

"Not in this world," Tyrion said. "In any case, the king has agreed to legitimize him when the time comes so that he can inherit Casterly Rock. In the meantime, I'm going to teach him as much as I can about being a lord and introduce him to the court. He'll need to marry, after all."

"And he agreed to that?" Jaime asked without thinking.

Tyrion gave him a very pitying look and said, "Yes."

The only good thing that came out of it was Brienne finally made time to visit him, though she brought her work with her. He'd been reclining on his bed, feeling sorry for himself, when he'd recognized her tread down the hallway and scrambled to sit up.

Her footsteps stopped outside his door, and he waited in silence, his heart thudding, until she knocked. He was up and at the door so quickly that her hand was still up in the air when he yanked it open. Her mouth fell open a little in surprise and he drank in the look of it greedily. He took in everything about her with his eyes as quickly as he could, as if she might disappear at any moment.

When Brienne took a step back, he realized that she actually might.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I was just…surprised." That was a word for the feeling that tightened his chest, the tenderness that threatened to drown him at the sight of her.

"No, I'm sorry," she replied, flushing. "I shouldn't have—it's late, and—" The red in her face went nearly purple and Jaime realized belatedly that it was nearly a mirror of what had happened back at Winterfell, except she was holding a number of papers in her hands instead of wine. She held them up then and some of her poise returned as she explained. "I just needed somewhere to quiet to work, and Tyrion reminded me that your room had a desk and I realized I hadn't seen you like I'd promised, and—well, Jaime, the other Jaime, he was helping me sort through what was left of the Kingsguard records and—"

Jaime felt strange. "You asked him for help with the Kingsguard records?" he asked, and when he heard the harshness of his own voice, he realized he was _angry._

Brienne shut her eyes, as if she hadn't meant to say that and regretted it. "He's—been very helpful," she said defensively.

"More helpful than the former Lord Commander of the Kingsguard might have been?" Jaime asked coolly.

Her shoulders slumped briefly. "No," Brienne admitted, her eyes dropping to her feet, and just like that, Jaime felt the swell of anger drain away like liquid from a punctured waterskin. "I've been…avoiding you." She squared her shoulders then, and then brought her gaze up to meet his. "I'm sorry. It was cowardly of me, and not befitting behavior of a," she hesitated, her eyes flickering away for a second before she seemed to make some kind of decision and ended with, "friend."

"Are we friends, Brienne?" Jaime asked, nearly amused, except that he felt desperate and foolish. He wanted…something other than to be friends.

"Yes," she said firmly, and smiled waveringly at him, hopefully. "And friends help friends with sorting out the mess the previous Lord Commander made of the bureaucratic aspects of the job."

"Hey," Jaime said mildly, "It wasn't _all_ me. Selmy didn't love paperwork either." He took a deep breath. "You are of course free to my desk and my help. I only wonder…"

At that, Brienne's expression went flat and annoyed. "Jaime Hill is rumored to be the next Lord of Casterly Rock and now there are young ladies in the White Tower at all times of the day, always trying to get a glimpse of him or…" She lowered her voice and flushed again, but this time it was flustered rather than mortified, and he couldn't help but lean in and was delighted when she pinked further. "Or to get him _alone._ He's managed to get most of them out for today, but the ones left behind are the sillier ones and they," her face twisted in disgust, " _giggle._ "

Jaime nearly giggled himself at the derision in her voice. He managed to get himself under control, and stepped back, an invitation. He saw her hesitate, but only for a second, and then she was brushing by him, heading straight to his desk. The tight, clenched feeling in his stomach eased, slightly. He almost closed the door, but saw her shoulders tense and left it open instead.

"Now," he said, "let's take a look at those papers.

No one, in the end, ever actually said to him _you're lucky you aren't dead_. Jaime had found that irritating, and had stewed about it until he'd realized he was upset because some part of him wanted to fight about it: he wanted to throw it in their faces, all his frustration and helplessness and grief, he wanted to say _I should have died with her_ the same way he had said _she's hateful, and so am I_.

But the urge faded as the weeks and months went on, and Brienne visited him more now, sometimes even without the excuse of work. Just to sit in his company, sometimes with dinner, sometimes with Tyrion, and occasionally she even allowed him to try to make her laugh with some joke or story he had heard helping Sam set up clinics in the city. He had succeeded twice so far. Jaime found himself storing topics to bring up with her, and he never seemed to run out of them. He never wanted to. He wanted always to be speaking to her, and she seemed to enjoy it well enough.

Sansa was leaving to return North to take her place as Queen of the North. Brienne was quite sad about it. There was some other texture to her sadness as she spoke about it, and when he inquired further, she flushed and stammered out, "Tyrion and Jaime—not you, of course, the other Jaime—will be going back with her, and I suppose I've become—accustomed to his presence. Podrick will be staying and Tyrion will return, but Jaime has become something of a, a friend."

 _Not you, of course,_ but _a friend._

He wanted to ask: a friend like me? Have you chained him up and dragged him across half of Westeros? Has he lost a hand for you? Has he ever jumped into a pit to fight a bear for you? Has he given you armor, a sword, a squire? Has he abandoned his post, everything he has ever known or thought worth anything, just to ride north and fight legions of dead men for you? Has he come to your door with wine, tried to unlace your shirt, kissed you? Touched you? Fucked you? Loved you?

A memory resurfaced. _You sound quite jealous._

_I do, don't I._

He didn't say any of it. At least the boy wasn't riding off to die. "Of the two of you, he will be left more bereft," Jaime said instead. "You'll see him again soon, I'm sure."

Brienne looked at him, long enough that his heart fluttered. "I hope so," she said, and Jaime tried not to _feel_ jealous.

Before Tyrion left, Podrick joined the Kingsguard. Brienne had knighted him before they'd come down from the North with Sansa and now that he had decided to stay in Kings Landing with Brienne, King Bran had decided to offer him a place in the Kingsguard.

"He used to be my squire, you know," Tyrion told young Jaime.

"Really?" the boy said, intrigued, and looked back where King Bran was formally inducting Podrick into the Kingsguard, mostly without too many of his strange, long silences. "Looks like Ser Brienne's done better by him than you have. Maybe I should go be her squire instead." His eyes lit up with an impish humor, and young Jaime leaned towards Tyrion as if he really were a young boy sharing a delightful secret with his father and whispered, "Joining the Kingsguard is the greatest honor for a knight, Father! Oh please, oh please, won't you let me be a knight of the Kingsguard?"

"Now, son," Tyrion said solemnly, "you know knights of the Kingsguard cannot inherit any lands, and you are to be my heeeiiiirrrr." Tyrion intoned the last word as dramatically and laboriously as he could without attracting too much attention, but it was hardly subtle and they were getting curious stares. Brienne didn't seem to notice. Her entire focus was on Podrick, her eyes shining with pride, and Jaime remembered suddenly the look in her eyes after he had knighted her.

"Be quiet. This _is_ a great honor for Podrick and I'll not have you ruin it," he hissed at them, and they both went obediently silent, looking a bit chagrined at remembering where they were. The two of them remained stoic for the rest of the ceremony. Tyrion was even moved to tears by Podrick's stammering pleasure at being granted such an honor, though he denied it fiercely afterward. 

It did not, however, stop them from repeating the bit a couple days later at a private dinner with Brienne and the newest member of the Kingsguard, with some added embellishment.

"Father!" young Jaime cried out, eyes bright with humor as Jaime came in with Brienne and Podrick came into the room where the night's private feast was already on the table. "It is the _Lord Commander of the Kingsguard_ and the great _Ser Podrick_ , also of the Kingsguard! Whyever did you not warn me that we would have such illustrious guests?" The boy grasped the cloth over his heart dramatically with both hands and made a mummer's show of swooning.

" _Father_?" Brienne repeated blankly as Podrick pressed a hand over his mouth in a vain attempt to hide his smile.

"Ser Brienne, you cannot tell me you have already forgotten the sordid details of my birth," young Jaime said, suspiciously sweetly, and Jaime eyed him distrustfully. The boy continued, "Of course I am willing to tell you again the story of my conception; specifically, the exact details of how my dear, hedonistic father—"

"Not that!" Brienne cried, blushing and scowling at the boy, but clearly fighting a smile. "It just seems a little strange, I suppose. He's not your actual father."

"Better than the one I'd had," young Jaime said easily, and ushered them to their seats. Tyrion wandered in just as they took their seats and beamed at them.

"I thought I heard my dear son shouting," Tyrion said. "He's quite excited to have you both as guests." He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Did you know he wants to be a _knight_?"

Brienne actually laughed out loud at that one, and Jaime found himself in the peculiar position of envying his little brother.

Not too long after, Sam and Gilly came in, both effusively pleased to have been invited; then Bronn and Davos Seaworth came, each carrying a bottle of wine; and then Sansa came in, pushing Bran's chair before her.

It was a little awkward at first, but it became easier as dinner went on and more drinks were had. Brienne talked glowingly of Podrick, who turned pink with the praise, and young Jaime chattered about the few students of his that had made the trip down south with him and were now making general nuisances of themselves in the capital. Sam spoke sternly to the boy on the topic, but was waved off. "We're leaving in two days, Grand Maester!" young Jaime exclaimed. "If they haven't done irrevocable damage already, I think we'll make it two more days!" Sansa sighed. The king only speared another potato with his fork, looking rather undisturbed.

Tyrion complained progressively more loudly about the number of nobles who had approached him about a betrothal between his bastard son and their daughters. "I have other things to do!" he huffed irritably. "If only you'd agreed to my plan, Lord Commander, you could have saved me a lot of time."

"Plan?" Jaime asked. The wine had made him drowsy and slow, but he was fairly certain he didn't know anything about any plan involving Brienne.

"To announce a betrothal to my bastard son!" Tyrion exclaimed as both he and Brienne froze. She coughed and didn't meet Jaime's bewildered gaze. "They could have had a long engagement and then I could have just told all those lords and ladies that he was already spoken for."

"But she—" and he almost forgot himself and said, _but she's mine._ He rallied quickly and said instead, "She's the Lord Commander! The Kingsguard cannot marry—"

"We changed the vows," King Bran said. The boy king's eyes were steady as they met Jaime's. "The Kingsguard no longer serve for life. Ser Brienne would be free to marry if and when she decided to leave."

"Of course we know that you and Ser Brienne were quite close at Winterfell," young Jaime said solicitously. "Father wisely thought it only appropriate to consider making an alliance with such a distinguished figure official. Keep it in the family, you know." Jaime stared at him, momentarily speechless.

"You—" he started to say, but Brienne's chair scraped loudly against the floor and she was standing, glowering at young Jaime, who was beginning to look a little stricken.

"Enough," Brienne said.

"Brienne," young Jaime said; not Ser Brienne, not Lady Brienne, but _Brienne_ , and Jaime lost time for a moment and then his left hand was aching and he was overwhelmed by the smell of Brienne, which he had never quite managed to forget, because she was hauling him away, her arms hooked up under his armpits, and he hadn't been so close to her since—

" _What are you doing,_ " she was hissing at him.

"I don't know," Jaime said helplessly. He looked back at the table and his younger self was holding his nose, which was bleeding, and he was gaping at Jaime as Tyrion helped him get back up to his feet. Tyrion had a resigned sort of look on his face. Sansa had pulled out a handkerchief and was reaching over the table to hand it to Tyrion, and Bronn was laughing. Sam was standing in front of Jaime with both hands out, a worried expression on his face. Gilly was still sitting in her chair, seemingly frozen. King Bran's serene expression hadn't faltered even a little bit.

"Wha wad dat fur?" young Jaime gasped out, but Jaime couldn't have answered even if he'd known the answer to that because Brienne was dragging him out of the room and into the hallway, where she let go of him and whirled him around so fast that he experienced some vertigo. He would have fallen, except she was clutching his upper arms very tightly.

"What are you doing?" she repeated, furious. Her color was high and she was close enough that Jaime could smell the wine on her breath.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't—"

She let go of him suddenly, and he stumbled before catching his balance again.

"You don't know," she said for him, with disgust.

"I," Jaime said, and rubbed his face. He shouldn't have had any wine, or at least he should have stopped much earlier. "I was… I was jealous."

"Jealous," Brienne said blankly. "Of what?"

The laughter bubbled out of him before he could stop it, and he was sorry again when she flinched away from him at it. "Him," he said. "I just… You two seem close." She was frowning at him. Jaime shrugged one shoulder defensively and said, "We're—not close. Anymore." _I miss you,_ he didn't say. _I want to be close to you. I don't want you to be his. I don't want you to be anyone's but mine._

"You left," she said. "When you left, he was there."

It was Jaime's turn to flinch away now. "I see." A flash of memory: _you took too long._

Brienne's brow furrowed, and then her eyes widened as she took his meaning. "Not like that! He's only seventeen!" 

"Only seventeen," Jaime echoed bitterly. "When I was seventeen, I already—"

"I hadn't," Brienne said rigidly. "I wouldn't. He's not—you. It wouldn't have been the same. It wouldn't have been right, even if he had offered. Which he hadn't."

 _I've never been with anyone._ Jaime wished he could take back this whole night. "I shouldn't have—"

"It's fine," she interrupted.

"—brought it up," Jaime finished awkwardly.

They were standing close enough that Jaime could pull her into his arms if she would let him. She probably wouldn't.

Brienne inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly. "I'm sorry," she said, distantly polite as she had been that first time he had seen her in Kings Landing after he had ridden away from her and Winterfell. "I don't think… I don't think I can do this. I can't be your friend. I thought I could—" Her breath hitched, and Jaime heard her voice shake. "But I can't." She turned blindly to leave.

Jaime reached out with his left hand, grabbed her wrist. "Brienne," he said. "I'm sorry. Please, just don't go. Talk to me."

She stopped, but she did not look back at him. "You have nothing to apologize for," she said flatly, confusingly. "It wasn't—I should have expected—it's my fault. Please let me go."

Jaime didn't. "Expected what?" he asked desperately. He couldn't lose her now; it was little enough that she'd offered her friendship at all, if he lost that too… "Brienne, please. Tell me how to make this right. Please. I'm sorry. I'll do anything."

"There's nothing to be done," Brienne said, frustrated, turning to him now and he let go of her, finally, at the shock of seeing her in tears again. "In Winterfell, I asked you to stay, and you didn't; I shouldn't have expected you to! Not when—" She jerked her head to the side, biting her lip.

"Cersei," he filled in shakily. Her eyes fluttered shut at hearing his sister's name. "Brienne, you must know—"

"I wanted you to be someone you weren't," she interrupted him again, and he fell silent. She looked at him, her eyes piercing through him like Valyrian steel. "I wanted you to be someone who wanted to live. With me." Brienne laughed mockingly—at herself, he realized. "We don't get to choose who we love."

" _Brienne,_ " he said, agonized. "Please, just listen."

"No," Brienne said, and left.

Behind him, the door opened. He turned to see Sansa Stark giving him a furious look. "You," she said scathingly, "are an _idiot._ " And then she followed Brienne down the hall briskly, the sound of her shoes clattering against the ground an echoing reprimand.

The door opened again, and his brother was smiling up at him wryly. "It's hard to disagree with her," Tyrion said.

"I should go to her," Jaime said, "I should explain—"

"No, you should _not_ ," Tyrion said firmly. "Give her space, Jaime. She deserves that much respect. She let you leave; now you have to let her if that is what she needs."

It hurt. He knew that Tyrion was right, but he also wanted to hold onto her and never let go. "I'm selfish," Jaime said, tears springing to his eyes.

Tyrion looked at him and sighed. He reached up, and waited until Jaime knelt down, and then cupped his face with a hand and swept a gentle thumb across both his cheeks to wipe away Jaime's tears. "You are."

"I left her," Jaime said, "I left _you._ I shouldn't have done that. I never thought—"

Tyrion kept his eyes on Jaime, gaze steady, his hand a welcome warmth on Jaime's cheek. "There is much that shouldn't have been done," he said finally. "I forgive all of it if it means I can keep you here, alive."

Jaime smiled reluctantly at his kindness. Where had Tyrion learned that from? It certainly wasn't Tywin or Cersei or himself. "I've made a hash out of everything," he said. "How could you..."

"I never said there wasn't _a lot_ to forgive," Tyrion said emphatically, making Jaime laugh involuntarily. Tyrion smiled at that, but his voice remained solemn. "I am no innocent either, brother. Between the two of us, we've enough hash to feed all the people of Kings Landing for a year at least."

"Perhaps all of Westeros, including the North," Jaime mused.

"Yes, for perhaps two years," Tyrion conceded. "If not three." He looked at Jaime thoughtfully and sighed, let his hands drop back down to his sides. "I should have expected that you would go to her in the end. You always did." _Cersei._ Tyrion didn't even sound bitter, just sad and resigned. As Brienne had been.

"I would've given her everything, my whole life," Jaime admitted lowly, miserably. "And I tried. I tried, but," he shuddered, unwilling to put it to words even now, even though he knew the truth in his bones, "I don't want to do that anymore."

Who was he without Cersei? Without her anchor to hold him in place and draw him to her, without her demanding his devotion and love, which he had always given, always, even if he had to scrape out his insides to do it? _The things I do for love_ , he'd said once. The hateful things he'd done, and not regretted even once, not until Brienne. Brienne, who would have gladly drowned him herself rather than escort him weeks by foot to Kings Landing, but didn't, all for a few words she'd sworn to Catelyn Stark; Brienne, who'd called him Kingslayer, but listened and believed when he'd told her his secret, then caught his weakened, wasted body before he'd drowned in the bath like _the stupidest Lannister_ that he was; indomitable, frustrating, infuriating Brienne who had split his life into pieces, Before Brienne and After Brienne, where before it had only been Cersei.

But the young Jaime had left Cersei and everything else he'd known for the chance at something different; and the boy was, in a thousand undefinable ways, _different_. Different from what Jaime remembered being, different than what Jaime was now, or had ever been. Different even from what Jaime thought he could be now that he'd decided to stay, to live; young Jaime had already made a thousand choices Jaime hadn't made and would make thousands more, all because he had taken a single action forward and away from everything he'd thought he would be.

_You're alive. I'm glad._

_I'm sorry about Cersei._

Jaime found himself stumbling back up to his feet.

Tyrion grabbed his hand. "What are you doing?"

"I'll come back," Jaime said. "I promise."

Reluctantly, Tyrion let him go.

Jaime walked, wandering, until he realized he was going to the place he'd nearly died. The rubble had been cleared. His feet remembered, somehow, the steps he had taken that last time and remembered also where he had stopped, turned. Drawn Cersei into his arms one last time. _No one matters but us._

The memories spring up unbidden. Cersei. Young and golden and the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, not yet a queen, but dreaming of it; glorious in her wedding gown, walking away from him, to Robert; glowing and round with child, gentled somehow in a way he had never seen before; grim with grief, furious with Robert, vicious; warm and savage, her nails digging into his skin as he dragged her closer as she squirmed; triumphant and crowned, steel in her eyes as she looked back at him across the throne room; hopeless and afraid as the world crumbled around them, clutching at him. A million memories of a lifetime spent together, for better or for worse. A life that was over.

Jaime ached for her, for every moment he'd had with her. He had wanted to save her, protect her, be her perfect knight; but she had known, as he had not, that only a king could give her the power to protect herself the way she wanted to. Only she hadn't known, as he had, that a queen's power and privilege wasn't enough to protect her from kings, from death, from having to grieve dead babes and children. She'd learned that lesson soon enough. He wished she hadn't had to learn it at all.

Two golden fools.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into the air, hoping Cersei would hear it somehow. "I'm so sorry." Sorry for being alive while she was not; sorry for being grateful for it. He sank slowly down to his knees and wept, long and hard, for Cersei.

Even after the tears ebbed away, he knelt there, feeling hollow and empty and spent. Tired. Heavy. Numb.

Jaime didn't know how long he knelt there as if holding vigil or paying penance, motionless and staring unseeingly into the air, except that it was light when he realized he was thirsty. It must have been hours. For lack of anything else to do, he stood, painfully, and then thought: _There is work to be done._

He felt thirsty still, and scraped thin, but he also felt...renewed. Rejuvenated. His mind remembered the little office he shared with Sam, the reports he needed to read and write, the staff he still needed to find for his and Sam's newest clinic, the promise he had made to Tyrion to return, and the conversations that he was still yet to have had with Brienne. There were so many things he wanted to tell her.

Nothing had changed. Jaime was still the man who had compromised his own honor, that had let the wound of that seep into his soul and rot for so long that he'd forgotten why he had wanted to be a knight in the first place, and hurt so many in the process. Yet standing there, alive and alone, Jaime started to believe, for the first time, that his might be a soul worth saving.

Jaime went back to Tyrion's room, where his brother was red-eyed from drink and lack of sleep, and let himself be berated by both Tyrion and Gilly, of all people. Apparently Gilly and Brienne had become quite good friends. Bronn snored in a chair, and Sam placed a soft hand on his shoulder supportively before collecting his wife to go back to their rooms. King Bran and Podrick had left fairly soon after Jaime had. Young Jaime had already gone back to his own room and was, presumably, sleeping.

Jaime fell asleep in Tyrion's bed, his brother pressed against his side. When he woke several hours later, the sun was bright in the sky, but Tyrion was still snoring. He got up and pulled off Tyrion's boots, tucked his brother in like he had done when they were both still children, and left a note saying that he'd gone back to his own rooms to change.

On his way, he saw Sansa, whose lips pursed when she caught sight of him. She walked up to him, slim and pretty, and said dangerously, "If you ever hurt her again, I will hurt you."

"Yes, Your Grace," Jaime said, entirely serious. She narrowed her eyes at him, but stepped away and left him to continue on to his rooms.

He took a deep breath before he walked the rest of the way, and she was there, hovering in front of his door. "Brienne," Jaime said. He stopped. "I'm sorry."

"I—" she started to say, but Jaime was the one who interrupted her this time.

"I love you," he said, finally. Her jaw dropped. "I miss you. I wish I hadn't left, but I did. It hurt me to go, and I hurt you when I went because I didn't deserve for you to mourn me and I thought that it was the right thing to do. You were right. I wasn't a man who wanted to live." Brienne was staring at him, her eyes shining.

She closed her mouth. "Jaime."

"It wasn't about you," he said softly, because it was honest. She bit her lip, but didn't leave. Jaime took a chance, took a step towards her. "I'm not that man anymore. I want you. I always did. I never stopped. I want to live." Brienne inhaled sharply at that, and he stepped in close to her. "With you."

"Because she's gone," Brienne whispered.

Jaime touched her waist gently with his stump. "Because she's gone," he confirmed, and let out a shuddering sigh. She grasped him by the elbow. "She's gone and I'm not. I didn't think it would be possible, but it is."

"It was always possible," she told him gently. "You were not two halves."

"I know that now. It didn't feel that way," Jaime said. Brienne leaned in to press her forehead to his. It was intimate. It wasn't _friends_ or _brothers-in-arms_. He didn't know what it was, but he liked it better than their careful friendship from before.

"I can't be the reason you live," Brienne said. "I won't have you living or dying for me, or anyone else. I'm tired of that."

"Fair," Jaime said. She was just like he remembered. Warm and solid. Strong. Alive. _I'm alive,_ he thought wonderingly, amazed at how glad he was for it.

She asked quietly, "What are we doing?"

"I don't know," Jaime said. They could figure it out later. He had time.

(Later, young Jaime complained, "I still don't see why you needed to punch me. If you didn't think the joke was funny, you could have just ignored me! That's the _polite_ thing to do." The boy grinned then, even though it also made him wince. "Still, I didn't expect that from you. I guess old dogs can learn some new tricks!")

**Author's Note:**

> I feel honor-bound to mention that a great amount of the emotional foundation of this fic draws upon [Choices](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19120546) by [Gwen77](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwen77/pseuds/Gwen77), who fucked me up with these two sentences:
>
>> She hadn’t blamed or hated him for leaving her, weeping in the courtyard; she hadn’t thought it surprising. He hadn’t, she thought, _chosen_ not to love her.
> 
>   
> Sometimes I will randomly remember that line and just quietly whisper to myself, _what the fuck._


End file.
